Gatsby Bubble Type Bleach & Color in Coconut Beige

The most popular bubble hair dye now is Liese. Other brands that I know have the same bubble type hair dyes are Schwarzkopf and Gatsby. My experience with Liese wasn't the best, because I chose the wrong color (Antique Rose is a dark tone), and I left the color on for too short a time for the dye to actually penetrate my then-virgin hair. (sounds a bit wrong, doesn't it?)

Gatsby Bubble Type Bleach & Color in Coconut Beige

And from what I've heard from other people, red color comes best from a salon, and is quite high maintenance. So I thought why not jump on the bandwagon and go BEIGE?

Bought two boxes in case there wasn't enough for even coverage.

A rough estimation of the prices of all three bubble hair dye brands that I know, as well as for comparison's sake (excluding discounts, etc):

• Schwarzkopf - RM34
• Liese - RM32
• Gatsby - RM28

The price was the only reason I got Gatsby, and I'm not really confident in using the regular dyes from Revlon, Schwarzkopf or L'Oreal Professional (even if Ronnie had offered to do it for me).

The box says:

Bleaches and colors hair at the same time - beautifully uniform coloring thanks to foam

Basically, the hair dye is a closely adhering gel, which easily adheres to the root of the hair and permeates every strand. After massaging, the gel transforms into a thick foam, much like Liese's formula. And the aqua fruity fragrance strongly masks the unpleasant sharp odor of bleach.

It contains four hair treatment ingredients:

• Moisturizing factor - collagen
• Gross factor - pearl extract
• Smoothing factor - silk extract
• Hair protection factor - camellia oil

The estimated final result of the Bleach & Color. The top of my head is somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd color; the middle to the ends are around the 2nd one.

The color payoff will depend on many different factors, such as the current state of your hair (previously lightened hair provides better color payoff), how long you leave the hair dye in your hair (I had a friend who left the dye on 15 minutes more, and the color was much more vibrant), humidity, the evenness of your application, etc.


Ingredients:

Solution 1 - 35ml

Water, propylene glycol, ammonium bicarbonate, ethanolamine, ammonium hydroxide, lauryl hydroxysultaine, polyquaternium-22, lauramidopropyl betaine, resorcinol, tea-cocoyl glutamate, polyquaternium-10, octyldodeceth-25, sodium sulfite, fragrance, sodium ascorbate, disodium EDTA, toluene-2, 5-diamine sulfate, 2,4-diaminophenoxyethanol HCI, camellia japonica seed oil, butylene glycol, hydrolyzed silk, hydrolyzed conchiolin protein, soluble collagen

Solution 2 - 70ml

Water, hydrogen peroxide, lauramidopropyl betaine, sodium laureth sulfate, acrylates/steareth-20 methacrylate copolymer, sodium phosphate, etidronic acid, phosphoric acid, sodium hydroxide

1. Solution 2; 2. Solution 1 (main dye solution); 3. English instruction sheet; 4. triple nozzle applicator cap (for easier application); 5. Japanese instruction sheet + rubber gloves

As usual, look through the entire sheet of instructions before proceeding (there are two of them, rather large pieces of paper, all folded up, available in English and Japanese). The instructions come with ample illustrations, as well as illustrations on the box itself, so you get the rough idea on how to use it.


Make sure you have enough time on your hands before commencing, remove all earrings or items that might stain, and if possible, get naked, get out of anywhere with many easily stained items, and drag your electronics into the bathroom for about an hour or so (just a suggestion). =D


And be sure to do this in a reasonable ventilated place - the odors could knock you out.

***

I got too excited and forgot to remove my earrings (8 of them). By the time I remembered that I still had my earrings on, I was already halfway through the application process. Oh, well. And the "aqua fruity fragrance"? Yeah, I'd have to disagree with you on that. There's still the sharp odor of ammonia (which usually comes with hair dye), but is not as strong.

Photo from Google. I'm a natural paranoid parrot.

I left it on for 45-55 minutes, as opposed to the suggested 30 minutes (in Hokkien, we call this "kiasu" - scared of losing). I'm too bloody paranoid to just leave it in for 30 minutes, and then get less color payoff than I expected.


After a while the bubbles faded, and what's left was just a my hair, sodden in dye solution, piled on top of my head. Instead of the "massage gently" instructions, I rubbed it in as I would with regular shampoo, just with a little more attention to the little hairs than usual.

Original hair color - natural daylight.

Original hair color - indirect daylight.

My original hair color (plus a little bit of Antique Rose left from my previous failed DIY dye job) is what you could call a rich, deep mahogany brown with subtle tones of, well, Antique Rose that kind of gives my hair the "highlighted" effect when light shines on it from certain angles.

After dyeing - natural daylight.

After dyeing - indirect daylight.

I only used one box, as opposed to my original plan of using two boxes to get better coverage. Actually, I'm quite happy with the final result - for me it's not much of a difference, since it's still another brown, but it's a different brown. Which is more than enough!


The final effect was more of a coconut-y brown, and according to my mother, significantly lighter than the original color. As in the husk of a coconut, which is dark brown, but lighten it a few shades. The color doesn't show up much in photos, but in person, it's quite light, especially when it catches light.


All in all, pretty lovin' this color. I think I left it on for a tad too long, though, 'cause my hair now feels pretty dry, and gets tangled pretty easily. (Duh, I left it on almost twice as long as recommended, and this is a bleach-and-dye product).


And again, the ends ended up darker than the top. I have to do some research to figure out WHY this is happening. Anyhow, this product gets pretty good reviews from me. Liese left a rather strong ammonia scent on my hair after the dye job; Gatsby too, but the fruity scent was strong enough to mask most of the ammonia.


Repurchase? Perhaps. Maybe a different color the next time~

Weekday mall trip

24th JANUARY 2013

It's a public holiday here now, but which public holiday it is, I have no idea. For one, I have no classes anyway; and there are so many public holidays throughout the year in Malaysia that I can't be bothered to keep track of them.

 My younger sister mentioned to me the night before that we would be going to Mid Valley (again, but still our favorite mall). I fell asleep the previous night waiting on Skype, and thinking of how to do a voice-over for my video without including all the background noise from a shared house on a main street. Doing it at night includes some free background music, such as endless cricket sounds, as well as random dog orchestras by the many dogs who live on my street.


Despite sleeping late, I woke up alarmingly early. But just early enough that my mother walked in a few minutes later with the intention to wake me up, presumably by roughly shaking me, or pulling back my covers, or something just mean and sudden. I think. I can't say. Anyway.


We were so early that the area around the escalator entrance was pretty bare. Wanted to get my splitting ends trimmed at X-Cut, but then saw that they raised the price from RM15, to RM16, to RM18. I might as well drop by Zola Hair Shop, and have Ronnie trim my hair. =D


There was a temptation to get the new Horlicks Cocoa from Chatime, but they weren't going to be open until half an hour later. By that time, we were enjoying assorted meat pies from Just Pies after shopping for some CNY cards at Hallmark.

What happens when I get dragged out for shopping with only less than 4 hours of sleep and no coffee. I either look like death, or I'm hyper like that. My mum spent a lot of the day shopping for oversized plastic peonies.

For some unfathomable reason, my sister and I were the main subjects for my mother's photography of the CNY display items at the Center Court. I thought I'd be funny and make some faces, which made some parents throw me dirty looks. Hey, I'm having my own fun!

FINALLY!!! Suribachi bowl from Daiso. I'm one step closer to actually making my kuro goma ice cream.

We had a short stroll through Jusco for CNY clothes for mum, after taking a look at shoes at Nose (abandoned again while I obsessed over stilettos and platforms). We walked up to Daiso, where I got some *ahem* fishnet stockings, and my suribachi mortar (more like a bowl) for my kuro goma ice cream~ Couldn't find the surikogi pestle, though...

Sister's sirloin steak set.

For lunch, one suggestion from my sister: Pasta Zanmai. Just before the lunch rush, we were comfortably seated and ordered our food. My mother ordered her usual, while my sister went all the way to a wafu pasta restaurant to have sirloin steak with rice and miso soup.

Kaki Kimuchi Soup Pasta - RM28 (regular); RM13 (mini). Subject to taxes.

When I like a restaurant, I would usually try as many things as I can from the menu. Today I tried out a miso kimchi soup pasta with oysters. The soup was a little spicy for my taste (I love spicy food, but my tongue still can't take it), but the overall dish was beautiful - the oysters were perfectly cooked, and even better, they were fresh! Would've opted for a little less veggies, though.


We were greedy, and ordered a chocolate banana parfait. Seriously, it's getting less and less worth the money. The parfait is made up of a layered concoction of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, banana slices, cornflakes, crushed chocolate cookies, and whipped cream. The ratio of cornflakes to all the other ingredients is almost 1 : 2. For RM16? I'd rather have the rock melon parfait.

I wanted another red, but the red for this series looked too dark for my liking, and I didn't want to get the red from Revlon or L'Oreal, so I opted for Coconut Blonde =D

I want a new hair color for CNY, after trimming my hair, that is. I've never used conventional DIY hair dyes, so I opted for another bubble formula dye. Instead of Liese (RM30.80 I saw today at Watson's), I opted for Gatsby's Bubble Type Bleach & Color. I'll probably do a separate post on this one when I get round to using it. It's cheaper than Liese and Schwarzkopf (RM32.80-ish), where bubble hair dyes are concerned.


Didn't get my BB cream, though. I saw an ad in the latest edition of Women's Weekly Malaysia for the new Hada Labo 10-in-1 BB cream. Pore minimizing, hydrating, skin tone perfecting, UV protection, and a few other awesome benefits ... for RM46.90. Uh. No. Even two boxes of hair dye doesn't cost that much. I'll stick with Za.


We made a rare trip to PJ Old Town, thinking to make a stop at the haberdashery that we used to frequent. The crazy traffic and lack of parking made us go home, not before making a stop at Edible Foods to find some nice cake boxes for my mum's CNY cakes.


We came home. Mum started to make soup for dinner, sister proceeded to transferring photos (but to no avail) from my mum's phone, and I started taking photos and blogging. Such is life for me. And today is categorized as a fairly eventful day, despite me walking around like a zombie due to the constant lack of sleep for the past month or so.

Kao Liese Bubble Hair Color in Antique Rose

I'm gonna share with you my experience using the popular Kao Liese Bubble Hair Color. Instead of the usual cream that you have to slowly and painstakingly get onto all the roots and strands, Liese uses foam to get all the strands and color the hair evenly.

The packaging is in pink! A magenta shade anyway~

Antique Rose (purplish red) seems to be one of the newer colors in the line. Cassis Berry (brownish pink) was my original choice, but I saw Antique Rose and decided to give it a try. This color comes with a rinse-off treatment, low smell formula and provides gray hair coverage, which isn't present in many of the other colors.

The rough directions on the side of the box.

The other side, with all the warnings.

It contains honey as a moisturizing agent that makes the hair feel smooth when fingers comb through, as well as hydrolyzed silk as a hair protecting ingredient, giving the hair a shiny and moisturized finish. The results will vary depending on the shade and lightness of your hair before coloring, the hair's condition, room temperature and the amount of time that your product is left on.

What you will find in the box:
1. Coloring solution (solution 1)
2. Color developer solution (solution 2)
3. Foamer cap
4. Instructions sheet in various languages
5. Some rough instruction and warning sheet
6. Rinse-off treatment
7. Liese styling product leaflet with short hair tutorial
8. Gloves and allergy test

Ingredients:

Liese Hair Color LP16 (Solution 1) Antique Rose 40ml Made in Japan

Water (aqua), alcohol, sodium cocoyl glutamate, laureth-23, ammonium bicarbonate, C12-14 sec-pareth-9, propylene glycol, decyl glucoside, ammonia, polyquaternium-22, 4-amino-2-hydroxytoluene, PPG-7, Toluene-2,5-diamine, fragrance (parfum), sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfite, p-aminophenol, ascorbic acid, myristyl alcohol, m-aminophenol, tetrasodium EDTA, honey (mel), butylene glycol, hydrolyzed silk, royal jelly extract, rebus idaeus (raspberry) fruit extract, sodium benzoate.

Liese Hair Color Developer LP (Solution 2) 60ml Made in Japan

Water (aqua), hydrogen peroxide, cetearyl alcohol, steartrimonium chloride, ceteth-40, myristyl alcohol, etidronic acid, oxyquinoline sulfate, sodium hydroxide.

 Liese Rinse-off Treatment 8g Made in Thailand

Water (aqua), stearyl alcohol, demthicone, dipropylene glycol, stearoxypropyl dimethylamine, lactic acid, helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, benzyl alcohol, dipentaerythrityl hexahydroxystearate/hexastearate/hexarosinate, amodimethicone, PEG-45M, hydrogenated castor oil hydroxystearate, fragrance (parfum), lanolin acid, paraffin, jojoba esters, ceteareth-7, bis-isobutyl PEG-15/amodimethicone copolymer, honey (mel), alcohol, ceteareth-25, malic acid, butyrospermum parkii (shea butter) oil, CI 15985, CI 19140, CI 60730.

The hair color comes with an allergy test kit - it comes in a sealed plastic pouch along with your gloves. Tear off the kit (which is just a piece of cardboard with a small indent at the center), and follow the instructions.

The allergy test panel. Make sure to use on a flat surface.

You'll need some cotton buds to put a few drops of solution 1 and 2 each to create a mixture, then apply it into the inner arm. Observe at 30 minutes and 48 hours after application. If there's redness or any indication of allergy, it would be advisable to avoid using the hair dye.


Now I think I left mine on for a tad too short a period of time, and I noticed that my hair is extremely thin and sparse. The box says that one box is enough to color shoulder length hair - my hair is longer than shoulder length, but there was quite some solution left in the bottle after I was done.

I edited the color slightly - it's slightly darker than this, but this is basically the color that came out from Antique Rose.

My original hair color is a very dark brown - the brown only being visible under certain angles and colors of light. Right now I'm sort of a red head~ I didn't do a very good job - only the top part of my head as well as the inner layers at the top are saturated with color, while the ends just look a bit darker.


I followed all the instructions, but obviously I still hadn't got used to the technique - the instruction sheet kept insisting that I avoid tangling my hair, and that made me keep the ends of my hair off the top of my head, which was supposed to be on top of my head to encourage even coloring.


I did this in a rush, right after gym and right before a lunch appointment with some family friends. Actually I could've just taken my time because the other party was late, but anyway, I left it on for what I think was just  15-20 minutes.


The solution stung my scalp - my skin has always been sorta sensitive, and this was my first time dying my hair DIY-style. Also, the foam got practically EVERYWHERE and the smell of ammonia is still here after so many hours.


Believe it or not, I colored my hair twice. The first round before lunch, and the second after. I had some leftover solution from the first round of coloring, and I was quite disappointed about the color payoff, so I tried doing another round, but I now realize I should have used the remaining solution with my hair ends instead of the roots.


Would I repurchase? Hell, yes! Although the color isn't very obvious, I love this shade of red~


Tips:

• use a plastic bag cape - cut open the plastic bag and use it as a cape
• before you finish the solution, use only one hand to massage
• shampoo, condition and dry your hair before coloring, then brush through to get rid of tangles
• there's no such thing as too much foam - use it all up!
• recommend doing this upside down at some point to get the longer parts of your hair on the top of your head
• start timing only when you've covered every single strand of hair and after at least 5 minutes of massaging
• wash/wipe any dye/foam off your skin quickly - the foam tends to stain, and the longer it sits, the harder it will be to remove the stain
• have lots of tissue conveniently available to wipe off any foam that splatters anywhere
• make sure to get into the inner layers and the hairline, as well as the ends of your hair - give every strand some love!
• if in doubt, get two boxes - just in case you don't have enough foam to color everything
• stock up during promotions - the original price of these hair dyes are about RM38, during certain promotions they can cost as low as RM26
• use a baby shampoo to wash your hair after washing off the foam (as per the directions)
• if possible, use this naked - it much less of a hassle without worrying that you'll get hair dye on your clothes; and you can also wash your hair much easily!
• if paranoid, you could just skip one day of hair-washing and use color protectant products, and/or leave the foam on for about 5 minutes more
• remove all earrings and accessories before commencing

Hair products? WARNING: Read at your own risk!

I don't exactly use much to maintain my hair, just the normal shampoo (anti-dandruff every two days) and conditioner, then I air dry my hair. I very seldom actually blow-dry my hair (I heard that it really damages the hair in the long term if no maintanence is done) until only recently, when the weather is really hot and I really have to tie up my hair.

Now, unless I'm going out, I don't do anything to my hair except maybe tie or clip it up till it has this weird shape which I can't smooth out the next morning. =P Every morning before tieing up my hair for school or to go out, I use Sassy Shine Treatment Serum. I can't find the pic on Google, but it could be purchased at Central Hypermarket on Jalan Mega Mendung, somewhere next to Pearl Point Hotel. I dunno when my mum bought this, but I love it. As the name suggests, it gives a natural looking shine to the hair and makes it really nice, smooth and manageable.

I have lank hair, and the Sassy serum kinda makes it look even lanker, but usually my hair's tied up so that's OK. But if I'm going out shopping or whatever, I want volume. I had purchased a small tub of hair wax more or less unintentionally at one point, and since I have it, I use it. The Lucido-L range may be purchased at most pharmacies (I bought mine at Guardian Endah Parade, it was available at Watson's as well). The one I own is the Edgy Move for flexible styling. I more or less just ruffed it through my hair roots and created a punky look. Either I applied it the wrong way or it required teasing to keep the volume, or just plain law of gravity, the whole thing went lank again after half an hour. =~=

I used this last night, after the nth time my mum told me to. The ladies on my mum's side are more or less fanatical about L'Occitane products, I myself use it's best selling cherryblossom perfume (yes, I use perfume). L'Occitane products have these few traits - they all smell really nice (depending on the main ingredient, but beautiful nonetheless =]) and they work gently but effectively, if used correctly, that is. This Shine Mask is formulated for dry and damaged hair (like mine =X), and comes in, well, look at the pic.

I would recommend doing this on a weekly basis, and on a weekend where you can sit back and relax. Take a warm/hot bath (this opens up the hair follicles, encouraging product absorption and it also opens the facial pores), and rub your hair with your towel a bit before wrapping it up. Apply your facial mask (I used Biotherm's Hydra-Detox Masque), then gently unwrap your hair (wrapping your hair just tightly would help absorb the excess water), then apply the mask to your hair, something like applying conditioner. You could get something to keep you hair away from your shoulders, but I just wrapped my towel around mine. =) The reason why I recommend the facial mask as well is because general mask instructions say that it should be applied for 10-15 minutes, which is the same time needed for the hair mask. Wash off your masks with warm water, then proceed as usual. =)

I used it last night and my hair still smells like the lovely mask right now, after around 20 hours~!